


found ourselves some treasure

by punkrockbadger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 11:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6954679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockbadger/pseuds/punkrockbadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s been fun.” James says, and feels endlessly useless for it. </p><p>I’m gonna miss these talks, he wants to say. I’m gonna miss running into you on the way to class, and looking over my shoulder at your apartment building every time I walk home to make sure you got in the elevator alright. I’m going to miss walking places with you and talking about a billion things and all of them somehow making sense. </p><p>He’s always been horrible with his words, but this is a new low, even for him.</p><p>“It’s been fun”, she says, with a bright smile, and the elevator doors close.</p>
            </blockquote>





	found ourselves some treasure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlingjustdont](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingjustdont/gifts).



> Dear Sasha,
> 
> There is no greater gift I can give a friend as dear to my heart as you than the best College Bros Jily I could muster. There are decades of greatness ahead of you, and I will be honored to witness as many of them as I can. I hope this doesn't suck too bad.
> 
> Love,  
> S
> 
> (PS: Yes, I stole the title off a George Ezra tune. I figured you'd like the personal touch! <3)

It’s not that James Potter is codependent, or clingy, or even particularly sentimental.

Scratch that last one; he’s intensely, horribly, entirely sentimental, but that doesn’t mean he’s particularly prone to living in his friends’ back pockets (he does) or gets too lonely without his friends being close by (he does) or is going to miss everyone too much over summer break (he will). He’ll figure it out, just like he figures out everything else in his life-- with a particularly potent combination of duct tape, WD40 and willpower.

He’s just a normal guy, and normal guys get down sometimes when they realize their whole lives are changing. Normal guys can’t get out of bed some mornings. Normal guys just lie awake some night and text their friends until too early in the morning about how a universal translator would work, or if communicators disguised as mouthguards are feasible or just plain stupid.

Normal guys don’t wanna leave college, sometimes.

He spends a whole five hours hanging out with Lily, two nights before his last exam and two nights before she leaves, and they walk around the school and hide away in the little coffee shop that Lily loves so much, and crack jokes at each other across the table while their friends watch them in confusion. James walks her back to her apartment, the apartment that she won’t be living in two days from now. He feels oddly heavy inside. It’ll be strange, come fall, because James will be living in the same rundown single occupancy apartment that he’s stashed full of random odds and ends that he really doesn’t need, and Lily will not. 

Lily might as well be across an ocean, for how far away she’ll be, and it’s getting on his nerves. But she’s here now, walking just ahead of him, and he’s right at her heels, like he’s always been. It’s a familiar place, one he slots into easily, and it helps that he really likes listening to her talk, even though she likes to joke that he’s never paying attention. He scuffs his feet against the bricks, and he listens.

He listens to a story about the mud flats near the place Lily grew up, listens to her explain every exhilarating detail of the feeling of dirt swallowing your feet up to your ankles, and imagines Lily, small and carefree with wind rushing around her, screaming bloody murder as she wages war against the elements. It fits neatly in with who he knows her to be, incredibly smart but dangerously impetuous, picking all the battles that she knows she can win and then a couple more for the challenge.

They shuffle their feet back and forth out in the cold nighttime wind and talk and talk and talk, sometimes looking up at the stars but mostly at each other, silly grins sloppily pasted on their faces like kindergarten art projects. Neither of them can stand still, because that’s what happens when they’re together-- they spark this weird, restless energy in each other that sets their brains going and doesn’t wear off until the early hours of the morning, when paragraph long, well thought out messages taper off into isolated “lol”s and “lmao”s. 

James tells Lily about the swing he grew up hanging off of in his grandparents’ courtyard, about how relieved he is to just go home and speak Tamil again, and how he’s kind of worried about not having his whole life together already, since everyone thinks he should. Lily tells James about how she’s stoked to see her little cousins, about how she’s looking forward to being home again, and how she’ll be glad to just get this job placement thing over with.

And then it strikes James, just like it’s struck him almost daily for the last three months. He won’t see Lily again, after tonight, until the spring semester starts, and then, at the end of the spring, he graduates. She’s got some more time left at school, signed up for a longer program than he did, but it feels like an end-- a horribly final, set in stone kind of end. He knows they’ll have a few more months, next year, but that doesn’t feel like enough, and he doesn’t know if she’ll want to be his friend anymore, once he’s not there every day.

“You know”, he says, mouth dry and throat scratchy, “I’m gonna miss our talks a lot. These talks, they… they make things fun. Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Lily replies, the pure joy in her smile dampening a little. “Why couldn’t you have been nicer first year?”

“I was getting over some stuff.” James says, running a hand through his hair, or what’s left of it, at least. He’s chopped it off for the summer, and he keeps expecting the inch and a half long mess on top of his head that he’s used to. He’d been a right dick to everyone at first, but he’d shaped up and shown his true colors soon enough, thanks to a wonderfully efficient kick in the behind by Remus, who is James’ own personal lifesaver. “Better late than never.” 

“Yeah.” Lily agrees, looking rather thoughtful. “Better late than never.”

They move inside at some point, Lily telling James that Marlene McKinnon won’t let go of the fact that they always seem to be having these talks standing outside when there are seats inside her building just a few feet away, and James laughs loudly, because half the fun is fidgeting around out in the dark. He’s heard enough about Lily’s roommates enough over the past few months to see the humor in this.

“It’s ‘cause we keep telling ourselves we’re going to leave.” Lily says, as they sit down on the bench. She has this pensive expression on her face that James has come to realize means something intense is coming. “And then we don’t.”

“Dude.” James says, because Lily Evans is one profound motherfucker. “Nice.” 

They fall headlong into conversation again, trading the names and plots of favorite childhood books while fidgeting and squirming around on the bench, and they talk until Lily checks her phone and realizes, fuck, well, there’s grading that still needs to be done, and it’s past midnight.

“It’s been fun.” James says, and feels endlessly useless for it. 

I’m gonna miss these talks, he wants to say. I’m gonna miss running into you on the way to class, and looking over my shoulder at your apartment building every time I walk home to make sure you got in the elevator alright. I’m going to miss walking places with you and talking about a billion things and all of them somehow making sense. 

He’s always been horrible with his words, but this is a new low, even for him.

“It’s been fun”, she says, with a bright smile, and the elevator doors close.

He walks home like usual, staring up at the sky, and looks back over his shoulder at the lobby out of habit. She isn’t there. She’s gone up to her room by now, probably, to finish those mountains of papers she’s been putting off grading. He smiles. He’ll text her once he gets back to his place, maybe think up a good joke or two to get her in a laughing mood.

He takes two tries to get his key into the doorknob, once he’s tromped up the steps to his apartment, and the door swings open. The lights are off, and everything feels oddly empty.

It feels like a new start, he thinks, flopping down on his unmade bed like a petulant child, and he’s never been fond of change.


End file.
